After losing elections in 1952, 1958, & 1964, Salvador
Allende was elected president of Chile in 1970. Before he could
take office, the US government, serving the needs of ideology &
business interests, began working with Chilean allies to
destroy the first freely elected socialist government in the
Western Hemisphere. Eventually, the goal was achieved:
on September 11, 1973, the Chilean military led by General
Augusto Pinochet mounted a coup d'état. The presidential
palace was bombed; Allende died; & thousands of innocent Chileans
were then subjected to decades of terrorism and abuse by
the military dictatorship.

Sergio Reyes was a student activist in Chile during the Allende period.
After the coup, he was imprisoned for four years on Dawson Island, a concentration
camp near the southern tip of Chile. Thirty
years on, he is organizing a reunion of those who were imprisoned with him.

Elizabeth Garrels is a professor of Spanish & Latin American
Studies at MIT. In the 1970s, living & working in Caracas, she
was a member of the Venezuelan Committee of Solidarity with Chile—part
of a larger network of such committees active around the world.

Isabel Allende, the niece of Salvador Allende & now
one of Latin America's foremost writers, went into exile
after the coup. Her first novel, The House of the
Spirits, was based on her family experience.

Nyna Brael Polumbaum is the co-author, with her late husband Ted,
of Today is Not Like Yesterday: A Chilean Journey, which chronicles
the lives of shantytown dwellers, miners, & peasants during the Allende
years & returns after Pinochet's fall to find the same people.

Chappell Lawson served as Director of Inter-American Affairs on the National
Security Council in the Clinton White House. Now a professor of political science
at MIT, he will review US foreign policy in Chile & in Latin America generally.

Noam Chomsky is an activist, writer, & Institute Professor
at MIT. Author of numerous books on international affairs, he will discuss
terrorism & US foreign policy in Chile & elsewhere.